1 in 4 contact centre agents suffer from vocal health issues, find out how the Plantronics portfolio of products and services can help you minimise the risk in this area.

1. Make an impact with your
voice
Richard Kenny
E&A Marketing Manager, Plantronics
Simply Smarter Communications™

2. Vocal Health
• 1 in 4 agents in contact centres reported vocal health issues*
• Wide range of symptoms
– difficulty talking against background noise
– coughing or clearing the throat
– the voice sounding creaky and dry
– failure to be heard when talking on the telephone
– finding it an effort or tiring to speak on the telephone
• Potential to be mis-diagnosed
• Do you have an acoustic intelligence strategy in place?
* IOSH: Working voices: an epidemiological study of occupational voice demands and their impact on the call
centre industry, 2012, Hazlett, Moorhead & Duffy
Make An Impact With Your Voice

3. Acoustic Intelligence
THE RIGHT CONVERSATION SPEECH
IMPACT
VOICE
THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY
INTELLIGIBILITY
THE RIGHT DESIGN AUDIO
ERGONOMICS
Make An Impact With Your Voice

4. What’s wrong here?
Make An Impact With Your Voice

5. Everything in its right place
• Simple tips
– Get your microphone
in the right place
– Corner of
mouth, approx 2
fingers width away
– Audit your contact
centre regularly
– Make sure voice tube
is present
– Replace these
regularly
Make An Impact With Your Voice

6. Speech Intelligibility
• The sounds that make speech
‘intelligible’ are consonants
• Consonants generally quieter
than vowels in natural speech
• Speech systems need to
emphasise 2000 – 4000Hz to
ensure maximum intelligibility
6
Make An Impact With Your Voice

7. Noise Cancelling
• Microphone based technology
designed to reduce unwanted
noise that a caller hears
• Simple, robust technology built
into the headset microphone
• Enables agent to talk more
naturally when noise levels are
higher
Make An Impact With Your Voice

8. Stand up for your rights
• Sitting is very inefficient for your
voice
• Compresses lungs, restricts vocal
cords
• Standing up helps you deliver
more power, more authority
– “opening up the airways”
• Wireless headset gives you more
freedom to stand up and talk
Make An Impact With Your Voice

9. Background Noise
Make An Impact With Your Voice

10. (Don’t) Bring the noise
• Simple Tips
– Don’t hold team meetings
in the contact centre
– Don’t use sound effects
(bells, klaxons, whistles
etc.) to signify large orders
– White noise generators?
– Furniture & carpets make
a difference
Make An Impact With Your Voice

11. Overall Conclusions
• Real cost to the business of taking voice for granted
– Overused voices can’t tell customers how good your service is
• Train, train & train again
• Simple solutions
– Hydrate well
– Make agents voices heard by setting up headsets correctly
– Quieten the background noise
– Walk & talk
Make An Impact With Your Voice

12. Simply Smarter Communications™